Body College

We can use three statements to help understand working with and overcoming trauma;

1. 'There is trauma' - terrible things happen to human beings.

2. 'We can overcome trauma' - we are wired to survive. We would not be here as a human species unless we had evolved ways of recovering from that lion attack (or sudden loss of a loved one, or being abused, or being in an accident...).

3. 'Healing trauma is about meeting the body' - in trauma, old parts of the brain change how the body works. By paying attention to feelings in the body and learning to self-regulate we can reboot the brain.

The central message from trauma research is that humans are very resilient. We can, and frequently do, emerge stronger and wiser after being overwhelmed.

Train as a Certified TRE® Provider in One Year
Our immersive program to learn to safely teach Tension and Trauma Exercises in one year is starting at the end of June.

This programme will equip you to safely guide clients and groups through TREs innovative series of exercises, to support the body to release deep muscular patterns of stress, tension and trauma.

The training includes:
- Six days of training, in-person. Organised as two three day modules, Go to Venue
- Six group supervisions, online. This is the minimum number you have to attend, you can attend up to ten over the year.
- Six 1:1 supervisions, online. These are mostly with your assigned TRE Mentor and are essential to deepen your practice.
- Feedback on assessments and one Final Certification Session with your Primary CT at end of course.

You can find out more at trecollege.net

Have you ever seen a dog or cat shake something off – rainwater, a build up of emotions after a fight, or some invasive poking and prodding at the vet?

They shake from the tip of their nose to the end of their tail and almost immediately recover from something physically or emotionally uncomfortable.

We too, like all animals, have the ability to do this. We shake involuntarily after intense experiences like being in an accident, giving birth, or after public speaking.

Most people are encouraged to stop shaking – but shaking it off is actually a valid thing to do for your nervous system. We don’t shake because we are traumatized, we shake as a response.

It’s a very primitive mechanism to reset muscle tension from a stuck state, release stress and enhance the mind-body connection.

When our physiology is stuck, we are stuck. Created by Dr. David Berceli, PhD, TRE® safely activates a natural reflex mechanism of shaking or vibrating that releases muscular tension, calming down the nervous system.

When this muscular shaking/vibrating mechanism is activated in a safe and controlled environment, the body is encouraged to return back to a state of balance.

You can visit trecollege.com to explore our upcoming training - we start at the end of June.

Thanks for sharing your experience of our two-year Art of Touch Biodynamic Craniosacral training…

“At the end of last year I started a 2 year course in Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy with Body College Galway and every time I engage with the course content & required reading I feel like my brain expands and shines & my body relaxes deeper into it’s innate knowing and health.
This work is so powerful in how it resources our healing from a place of individual wellness - (there’s always health and comfort present even in pain and dis-ease) how it thrives in the relational field and how it strengthens heart & brain coherence.

It’s kinda cosmic in its simplicity ✨ and endless in its depth. And I’ve only scratched the surface!

For me it feels like such a relief to be returning home to the intelligence of my body - 80% of our body's signals are sent FROM the BODY to the brain and only 20% go from the brain to the body!!

“The smartest thing in the room is the intelligence expressed in our bodies” (Body College)

I’ve started my student clinics with family and friends and am now branching out with new clients in Naduir Furbo this week 🙌
Excited
Warm & Fuzzies
Thrilled for myself!!

Grá Mór
Ruth”

Our latest Body College Biodynamic Craniosacral training started in March 2026, but it's still possible to join the course at Seminar two on June 17-21.

(We can help you catch up on the teaching material and skills to train as biodynamic craniosacral therapist (BCST) with the current cohort.)

Please visit www.codycollege.net/london to find out all about the training.

About the training:
Biodynamic craniosacral therapy is an interactive process of embodied connection. The main tool is non-doing, relational touch, informed by meditative awareness. Biodynamics is a simple and powerful practice that supports presence, groundedness and health.

Craniosacral therapy is an active engaging with the complex business of feeling. There is an explicit goal of supporting embodiment and perceptions of safety inside the individual.

In the dynamic of relational touch, there is the potential for new feelings, new stories and new meanings to arise. Truth emerges as a shared story between client and therapist, informed by phenomena of being within a sensitive organism. We aim to generate concepts that promote health and sensations of joy, ease and agency.

We are shaped by experience. Biodynamics attempts to work with the whole person and the totality of their story. From pre and perinatal experiences, to adverse childhood events, to being embedded in oppressive and unequal power structures in society and culture. We support people to self-regulate and develop resilience in the face of an intense, and often overwhelming, morass of feelings, drives and behaviours.

There is an enormous power inside all of us to learn and grow from adverse experiences. We have a body that is self organising and always striving for harmony. Health is expressed as connection and coherence in a rhythmically pulsing body. In biodynamics health is met as an active seeking for balance that is inherent to being alive.

Anxiety is an over-protective feeling. Have self-compassion towards the cautious, fearful parts of you, but do not feed the flames.

Instead, ask yourself, ‘what’s the worst that could happen?’.

If you’re full of catastophic thoughts, explore them, but do not trust them.

Know your primitive brain is most likely mistakenly predicting life-or-death scenarios.

Ground yourself, and change the context.

Acknowledge the simple logic of your old brain, and instead cultivate your inner cheerleader: “you are fine, you can do this“. Getting bogged down in negative self-talk can be a real problem in anxiety. Try not to get lost in over-thinking and listening to your inner critic.

It’s good to remember that to overcome anxiety you do not need to remember or understand the cause. The goal is simply to use a helpful tool, like the ones above, to self regulate in the present moment.

The Really Strange boxset contains all of my science-based graphic medicine comics, which address questions like:
· When can anxiety be good?
· How can I change my pain experience?
· How does trauma change the way our brains work?
· Why can't we tickle ourselves?

In the books, I aim to make complex human experiences like pain, trauma, anxiety and touch accessible, engaging (and gently humorous).

They are illustrated by the brilliant Sophie Standing, who specializes in human sciences.

And they're also available in German!

One of the biggest insights I’ve had from clinical experience is that most people are poor at feeling their body. I would go as far to say that most people are dissociated, most of the time.

When you take time to learn the subtle flows and tones inside your body, you’re more able to hear the body’s ‘good news’ rather than just the danger signals.

The more good news, the better - it makes the brain feel safe, which turns down the volume on pain.

In my years as a bodyworker, and bodywork teacher, I’ve come to see that when we’re working to heal pain, anxiety and trauma, it’s key to find safety in the body. I’ve created a free ebook includes:
-An exploration of how trauma changes the body
- Five questions to help identify levels of overwhelm.
- A practice to help you map your body
- An awareness exercise to help you find places of health in your body
- A guide to mapping out the resources that can help you to cultivate safety, health and wellbeing.

Please see the link in my bio to download the book for free or visit www.bodycollege.net

Touch can be an incredible way to soothe, create safety, and help us to feel whole and healthy. Numerous studies have revealed that touch is essential for us humans to thrive and in this blog I’m going to share the details of these studies and what they can teach us about the power of touch.

I’ve seen the profound benefits of touch countless times myself in my one-to-one work, as well with my students on my Art of Touch Biodynamic Craniosacral professional trainings.

I journeyed through many different bodywork modalities before discovering the deeply impactful, slow, ‘non-doing’ approach to touch that I work with today.

Shiatsu was a great way of learning about the power of touch, though I could never quite feel energy in the way it was explained. Even so, it was rich and beautiful experience, and it gave me my first exposure to zen philosophy and understandings about non-doing touch where less is very much more.

My five-year training as a chiropractor was equally rich, though I’ve now moved away from the philosophy of alignment being the defining key to easing pain and creating health, as well as the notion of being able to diagnose problems in the body through touch.

I came home in the world of bodywork and touching when I discovered Biodynamic craniosacral therapy

For me, this is the art of touch - the ability to do less, but achieve more. I think this is an extraordinary paradigm which uses slow touch, that is inherently emotional, relational and meets a whole person and considers all of the stories that may emerge inside them.

Philosopher Barry Smith says ‘the sense we rely on most for reality is touch’.

It’s easy to get lost in thoughts and perceptions and get lost in an overly creative fantasy world, to know something is real, we grab it and touch it, we hold it.

Descartes concluded “I think, therefore I am”. However there’s an equally strong strand in philosophy which proposes that our engagement with the world is central to our understanding and experience of the world.

In our direct and immediate awareness of the body, we know it primarily through the tactile sensations involved in any activity of touching something. Knowing our body is knowing ourself, and we know our body through engagements and our sensing of the world.

The world touches us and we know that we exist through this interaction, so therefore we might change the famous philosophical statement to “ I touch therefore I am” or “I interact with the world, therefore I am”.

A few years ago, I was interviewed for Top Santé about Trauma and Tension Releasing Exercises (TRE) - it’s so exciting to see more and more people interested in this simple approach to healing trauma.

One of the reasons I’ve taught Trauma and Tension Releasing Exercises (TRE) for over 13 years is that it makes a process which can so often feel complex and hopeless into something accessible, practical and even simple.

I've been lucky to train over 2000 individuals to facilitate TRE, and have worked with 1000s more in my courses. Across the board, one of the most challenging aspects of trauma that I have witnessed is the shutdown response - also known as freeze or dissociation.

As you may have experienced all too often yourself, when you’re in freeze mode, you feel stuck, numb, lost and, frequently, depressed and exhausted. Everything feels too much. Part of your brain is trying to protect you by flooding your nervous system with natural pain killers (endorphins), limiting your ability to feel and act.

The beauty of TRE is that it gently wakes your body up, supports connection to yourself and others and helps you to find a real, abiding sense of safety within you.

TRE is you, healing you.

Coming out of dissociation helps you feel real. This is profound and life changing.

One of the most common responses I hear from my students is ‘I did not know that I was missing my body’.

When you are supported in this safe, embodied approach to healing trauma, you may well feel a sense of joy and ease inside you as you fully connect and ground for the first time.

That's why I love teaching TRE - to offer people who may feel lost and hopeless a pathway to healing trauma which is gentle and offers long-term, real results.

See the link in my bio to explore our upcoming trainings.